folly, tidbits of trivia, cleaning, stale, dog mushing, thongs and G-strings. the fossil is the wooly mammoth;

 

The titbit about regional underwear buying habits will probably draw the most attention. Welsh women are especially partial to red lingerie while north-westerners go in for thongs and G-strings. But there is more to be learned than that about the state of Britain and of the retail industry from John Lewis's first report on its customers' shopping habits http://econ.st/HiXNdD

  

Woman wearing a T-back style thong.

 

 The thong is a garment generally worn as either underwear or as a swimsuit in many industrialized societies around the world.

 

 One type of thong is the G-string, the back of which consists only of a (typically elasticized) string.^[2]

 

 

French See Case Against Strauss-Kahn as American Folly

By STEVEN ERLANGER 12 minutes ago

Dormant anti-Americanism has been reawakened in France, fueled by a sense that the culture of the United States has undermined fair play.

Pogue’s Winter Tech Tidbits

By DAVID POGUE

This is our school system's February break, so I've taken the week off to spend with the family (which explains why there was no Pogue Times column and no video this week). (Yeah, I know--you're jealous of a February school week off, right? Sure. But YOUR schools don't carry on until the end of June to compensate!)
But I didn't want you to have to go Pogueless this week. So in today's e-column, it's Winter Cleaning: a whole bunch of little notes and ideas I've been meaning to write about, and want to get them off my chest before they get stale.

vital few, useful many.
80/20 原理

Spotlight

Alaska's Muldrow Glacier

Alaska is 50. The territory once known as Seward's Folly became the 49th and largest US state on this date in 1959. US Secretary of State William Seward bought the 587,875 square miles (1,522,595 sq km) in 1867 for $7.2 million. Here are some other tidbits of trivia about the state that makes up America's extreme northwest: the state motto is "North to the future"; its flower is the forget-me-not. The state bird is the willow ptarmigan; the fossil is the wooly mammoth; the insect is the four-spot skimmer dragonfly and the state sport is dog mushing. Alaska is an exclave of the US, separated from the other mainland states by British Columbia, Canada.

Quote
"It was the best purchase ever made." — Richard Nixon, of Alaska


Spotlight:

The Iditarod

The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race is an annual race that takes place in March in Alaska over more than 1,000 mi. (1,600 km). The trail runs from Willow (north of Anchorage) to Nome, over hills, through forests and wilderness, across rivers and through small settlements. On this date in 1985, Libby Riddles became the first woman to win the Iditarod, finishing the trail in 18 days. She led her 13 dogs into a blizzard that kept the rest of the racers delayed in Shaktoolik; she never lost her lead. This year, 71 mushers — including a team from Jamaica! — started out across the frozen Willow Lake. Lance Mackey came in first, making this his record fourth straight win. He completed the race in eight days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 9 seconds, taking home a cash prize of $50,000 and a new truck.

Quote:

"Dog mushing is a wonderful sport, mainly because the dogs are such wonderful creatures. We owe it to the dogs to treat them as well as possible." — Libby Riddles

mush² (mŭsh)

v., mushed, mush·ing, mush·es. v.intr.
To travel, especially over snow with a dogsled.

v.tr.
To drive (a dogsled or team of dogs).

n.
A journey, especially by dogsled.

interj.
Used to command a team of dogs to begin pulling or move faster.


stale
adjective
1 no longer new or fresh, usually as a result of being kept for too long:
The bread/biscuits/cake had gone stale.
The morning after the party, their apartment smelled of stale cigarette smoke.

2 not fresh and new; boring because too familiar:
stale jokes/news

3 describes someone who has lost interest in what they are doing because they are bored or are working too hard:
They had been working together for over five years and they had both become a little stale.

staleness
noun [U]
titbit, US USUALLY tidbit Show phonetics
noun [C]
a small piece of interesting information, or a small item of pleasant-tasting food:
Our guide gave us some interesting titbits about the history of the castle.
This magazine is full of juicy titbits (= small pieces of interesting information, especially about other people's private lives).
Grandma always has a few titbits for the children if they're visiting at lunchtime.



trivia Show phonetics
plural noun
unimportant details or information:
She has an encyclopedic knowledge of pop trivia.
I'm fascinated by the trivia of everyday life.

trivial Show phonetics
adjective
1 having little value or importance:
I don't know why he gets so upset about something that is utterly trivial.
Sexual harassment in the workplace is not a trivial matter.

2 describes a problem that is easy to solve:
Getting computers to understand human language is not a trivial problem.

triviality Show phonetics
noun
1 [C usually plural] something that is unimportant:
I'm a busy man - don't bother me with trivialities.

2 [U] lack of importance:
The prison sentence seemed rather harsh, considering the triviality of the offence.

trivialize, UK USUALLY trivialise Show phonetics
verb [T] DISAPPROVING
to make something seem less important than it really is:
I don't want to trivialise the problem, but I do think there are more important matters to discuss.

folly[fol・ly]

• 発音記号[fɑ'li | fɔ'li]

[名]（複-lies）

1 [U]愚かなこと, 愚劣；[C]愚行, 愚かな考え, 愚言.

2 金ばかりかかるばかげた事業［企て, 建造物］；（遊園地などの）模造建築物.

3 ((-liesで単数扱い))（グラマーな女性出演者の出る）時事風刺劇.

［古フランス語fol（愚かな）の名詞形. △FOOL¹］

on eggshells, recount, woolly, flocculent, wild and woolly「不受法律和秩序約束的」、「粗野的」、「無拘無束的」或「混亂而刺激的」

Eggshells dating to 18,000 years ago suggest that people on New Guinea may have been raising cassowary chicks.

可追溯到 18,000 年前的蛋殼表明，新幾內亞的人們可能一直在飼養食火雞。google translate

 Scientists Just Found a Woolly Mammoth That Still Had Liquid Blood

Bookshelf: Sleep
By SARAH HARRISON SMITH
"Lena's Sleep Sheep," Anita Lobel's book about a little girl helped to sleep by some woolly thinkers, and more.




How the rhino got its wool?
 
Iran to Recount Some Votes

Iran's Guardian Council said it is prepared to recount disputed ballot boxes, as state media reported that seven people died in election-related protests a day earlier.

"I was always on eggshells when friends and family came to stay in case someone wandered into John's room and saw him," she said, adding that he would often take walks disguised in a woolly hat and faking a limp.

Wife Recounts Hidden Life

Woolly（或作 wooly）是一個英文形容詞與名詞，主要有「羊毛製的」、「模糊不清的」等意思。詳細解釋與常見用法如下： [1, 2]

主要含意與用法

羊毛製的 / 像羊毛的（形容詞）
指由羊毛製成，或表面像羊毛般覆蓋著綿毛、絨毛的狀態。
• 例句：woolly hat（羊毛帽）、woolly mammoth（長毛象）。 [1, 2, 3]
思路不清的 / 糊塗的（形容詞，引申義）
用來形容想法、觀點或思考過程很混亂、不夠清晰，且沒有經過深思熟慮。
• 例句：woolly thinking（混亂的思維）。 [1, 2]
羊毛織品（名詞）
非正式用語中可指羊毛衣物，複數形 woollies 常指整套羊毛保暖內衣或毛衣。 [1]

您可以參考 劍橋詞典 獲取更多例句。

wild and woolly

uncouth in appearance or behaviour: the Australian outlaw’s wild and woolly look he might have been a gunman in his wild and woolly youth

Wild and woolly 是一個英語慣用俚語，原意指「不受法律和秩序約束的」、「粗野的」、「無拘無束的」或「混亂而刺激的」。 [1, 2]

意思與用法

這個片語常用來形容人、地方、時期或情況：

粗野、不受約束：形容缺乏法律或社會規範控制的環境（例如美國西部開荒時期）。
外表不修邊幅：指人或動物看起來長滿粗毛、邋遢或不整潔。
瘋狂、吵鬧的狀況：形容場面失控、熱鬧或混亂的活動（如派對或激烈的辯論）。 [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

常見例句

His novels were about the wild and woolly Western frontier.（他的小說是關於荒蠻而粗獷的美國西部邊疆。） [1]
The young people next door had a wild and woolly party last night.（隔壁的年輕人昨晚開了一個瘋狂吵鬧的派對。） [1]

來源背景

這個俚語源自 19 世紀 1850 年代美國淘金熱與西部大開發時期的 美國西部邊疆。當時用來形容西部荒野中那些不拘小節、留著長鬍子、穿著粗糙羊毛服飾、不受文明約束的牛仔與拓荒者，後來演變成形容一切荒蠻、失序或狂野的事物。 [1, 2, 3, 4]

recount (DESCRIBE) Show phonetics
verb [T] FORMAL
to describe how something happened; to tell a story:
He recounted his adventures since he had left home.
[+ question word] He was fond of recounting how he had played for Manchester United when he was 19.


re-count (COUNT AGAIN) Show phonetics
verb [T]
to count something again

recount Show phonetics
noun [C]
another count, especially of the number of votes in an election:
The Democrats demanded a recount but still lost by a few votes.
The noun eggshell has one meaning:
Meaning #1: the exterior covering of a bird's egg
Synonym: shell

卵のから; 壊れやすいもの.
egg・shell china　薄手焼陶器.
egg・shell paint　半つや消しペンキ.

woolly

Syllabification: (wool·ly)

Pronunciation: /ˈwo͝olē/

(also wooly)

Translate woolly | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish

adjective (woollier, woolliest)

• 1made of wool:a red woolly hat
• (of an animal, plant, or part) bearing or naturally covered with wool or hair resembling wool.
• resembling wool in texture or appearance:woolly wisps of cloud

• 2vague or confused in expression or character:woolly thinking
• (of a sound) indistinct or distorted:an opaque and woolly recording

noun (plural woollies)

• 1 (usually woollies) informal, chiefly British a garment made of wool, especially a pullover.

• 2a sheep.

Derivatives

woolliness

noun

flocculent

Line breaks: floc¦cu|lent

Pronunciation: /ˈflɒkjʊl(ə)nt 

  

/

ADJECTIVE

1Having or resembling tufts of wool:the first snows of winter lay thick and flocculent

MORE EXAMPLE SENTENCES

1.1Having a loosely clumped texture:a brown flocculent precipitate

MORE EXAMPLE SENTENCES

Derivatives

flocculence

NOUN

MORE EXAMPLE SENTENCES

Origin

early 19th century: from Latin floccus 'tuft of wool' + -ulent.